Copied Entire Website - What to Do?

22 replies
Hi, I'm hoping someone has experience in dealing with this.

I have a website in a small niche that's been doing quite well. Recently, I noticed another website popped up for similar search terms. Competition is fine - sometimes it's great since you get new ideas, but when I actually looked through this new site - it became glaringly obvious that they had basically replicated my entire website and then tried to re-word a certain percentage of the content. Some parts of the articles are taken word-for-word from my site.

About 95% of their articles are copied from the articles on my site. They didn't even have the creativity to combine certain articles together - they basically just re-phrased the Title and re-worded the content.

And they're ranking just beneath me. Honestly - this upsets me as this person obviously put in no effort whatsoever. The content seems to have been outsourced to some poor sap who was told to spin it 'til he got a certain level of uniqueness.

Anyway, I'm wondering what I can do? As I mentioned, they at least took care not to rip off my entire article word-for-word, although it's very clear that they basically just re-worded my content (even the flow of the article is the same).

Anyone have experience dealing with these issues? Anyone had luck getting rid of these people?
#copied #entire #website
  • Profile picture of the author AnniePot
    Send them a DMCA takedown notice. Give them a couple of days to respond and if you hear nothing send that same DMCA to their hosting company.

    Here is some more information: http://www.sfwa.org/2013/03/the-dmca...e-demystified/
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    • Profile picture of the author cupcakemonster
      Thanks for the link - do you by any chance know if it only applies to 100% word-for-word duplicate content?

      I just ran 2 of the articles for uniqueness and it's 50% unique - but all the points, the whole flow of the article is obviously copied. Would that meet the requirements of the DMCA?
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      • Profile picture of the author AnniePot
        No, it doesn't need to be 100% duplicate. You just need to be able to prove they are edited copies of your original articles. List every article you believe is a copy of your originals including your publication date and his. As well as articles, is the site a copy of yours? If it is, list that too.

        Good luck
        Anne
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    • Profile picture of the author talfighel
      Originally Posted by AnniePot View Post

      Send them a DMCA takedown notice. Give them a couple of days to respond and if you hear nothing send that same DMCA to their hosting company.

      Here is some more information: The DMCA Takedown Notice Demystified | SFWA
      This is a great idea.

      I had people in the past who even took my YouTube videos, copied the video itself with links inside the video.

      I even had articles stolen. They pretended that they wrote the article and even advised the readers that they are the authors.

      You can spend time to fight them or you can spend time to build your business and move on. I chose to move on.
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      • Profile picture of the author art72
        Originally Posted by talfighel View Post

        You can spend time to fight them or you can spend time to build your business and move on. I chose to move on.
        I whole-heartedly agree that it is an exhaustive effort trying to fight these thieves, and it does 'hammer' on one's mindset and make moving forward a difficult task.

        There too, I don't think we should just 'allow' them to keep doing this, especially when they are directly effecting our sales and making money from our work.

        I filed a DMCA, and am still awaiting G's response, as in my case the guy created multiple free blogs on G's free blogging platform, and to my amazement has several slightly differing, but essentially many variations of my work ranking on page one. -It almost makes me want to cheat, if it's really that easy!!!
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        • Profile picture of the author cupcakemonster
          @art72 - I just replied to your email, but now that I'm reading your messages. Our thieving schmucks sound very similar. Mine is also spinning my content and his site is hosted with Google. I didn't even know Google did hosting...

          @talfighel - Totally get your point. It's a lot more important to work on my stuff than waste energy dealing with this. At the same time, it's sort of like having someone break and enter into your house and start stealing stuff. Sure, you could just go on accumulating wealth and buying new things, but I think it might be worthwhile to take a few minutes to shoot the dude before getting back to my duties.

          Anyway, I emailed the schmuck and his response is that his articles were outsourced to a writer and are totally unique, despite having the exact same structure, information, ideas, points - all arranged in the exact same way - as all my content.

          I filed a DMCA and am hoping Google responds soon. I'm not sure how the copied content policy stands on content that's clearly copied, but "re-worded." Either way, guess we'll find out soon

          In case the DMCA doesn't pan out - I still want to get rid of this guy. How do I file a DMCA with his hosting provider? It's just listed as Google Inc.
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          • Profile picture of the author talfighel
            Originally Posted by cupcakemonster View Post

            At the same time, it's sort of like having someone break and enter into your house and start stealing stuff. Sure, you could just go on accumulating wealth and buying new things, but I think it might be worthwhile to take a few minutes to shoot the dude before getting back to my duties.
            Not even close to being the same. You can spend weeks and weeks to get this person and his stolen content off the web. It may happen and it may not happen.
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  • Profile picture of the author jeffatrackaid
    Do you think you are losing any business to this site? If not, then you may not want to worry about it too much.

    Second, look at their source code and see if they still reference any parts of your site directly. This is an opportunity to strike back.

    A customer of ours had this happen to them and the duplicate site was still pulling in images from the original site. We used some code to push a image that said - "The content nearby is stolen from: www.domain.com".

    This site disappeared pretty quickly.

    Lastly if you do go the DMCA route, make sure you file it correctly. I know if we don't get a correctly formed DMCA, we ignore it.
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  • Profile picture of the author Brand New Guy
    I'd really like to hear from some content-spinning advocates in this thread. This is actually one of my fears about my own work, but you read a lot of people on this forum talk about it like it's an alright thing to do.

    One thing in your favor is that spun content is inherently of lower quality than original work. Google likes unique content, and hopefully in the near future their algorithms will be powerful enough to weed out bad copies automatically.

    Be sure to post how the DMCA works out, I really want to know.
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    • Profile picture of the author cupcakemonster
      True - the writing is abysmal. I actually just emailed the guy - some schmuck in India who seems a little too eager to start making money on IM - and listed all the pages he was to remove promptly. It is basically 85% of his site. The articles - not copied from me - I vaguely recognize as having read on other similar sites as well.

      It was rather funny skimming some of his articles since spinning often takes things out of context and changes the whole meaning of a sentence. For example, he re-worded "spot-treat fat" to "spot and treat fat." Lol.

      But as amusing as it is - copying someone's entire site is a pretty sh*tty thing to do. It's a colossal waste of that person's time as well as the plagiarizer's time. It adds no value to anyone or anything and yes, there are some people who think it's okay to do and that's exactly why I think I'll spend an hour or two of my time to take this one down.

      I almost feel like it's a duty to discourage people like this. To spam or blackhat SEO your own site is one thing, but to completely copy someone else's site? That's pretty crappy.
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      • Profile picture of the author art72
        Originally Posted by cupcakemonster View Post

        True - the writing is abysmal. I actually just emailed the guy - some schmuck in India who seems a little too eager to start making money on IM - and listed all the pages he was to remove promptly.
        I sent you a PM, curious to know the guy's user name, but Warrior Forum often frowns upon mentioning things of legal matter - so I won't post his name here!

        I have a strange feeling, it's the same person who is stealing my content in the same way. I'm starting to think he looks for high ranking sites, with affiliate offers (reviews/articles/images, etc...) and copies them, and magically starts appearing on page 1 with several (spun) versions of the stolen work!

        In my case he has like 3 versions of my review all competing with my original on page 1.

        More importantly, I would love to know;

        "How is this crap passing Google's radar and getting on page 1?" :confused:
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  • Profile picture of the author frambles
    I would go straight to their hosting provider as they are obliged to act and remove that content. They will act quickly as long as they can see the content is duplicated themselves
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  • Profile picture of the author constructor
    Well Will this DMCA thing ever work or its just like the Disavow ?
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  • Profile picture of the author TriggerIM
    I echo the sentiments of trying a DMCA takedown to the host. I don't think there's really another option. As long as it's obvious that they are copied enough, it may work.
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  • Profile picture of the author magneticweb
    It's quite right to do everything you can to stop these content thieves. We have to hope that Google will make a major algorithm change soon and block content that's obviously copied or spun from someone else's site.

    The advent of content spinners a few years ago has prompted a lot of this kind of behavior. And yet so many people still express the view that content spinner software is acceptable.

    The truth is that it never produces anything coherent, that most people who use them just slap up the spun content without even proof reading it, and it all helps in the process of ruining the English language.

    Examples of this are:

    Spun content: Volumes could presumably be written explaining the variations between males and women.

    . . . which means: Volumes could no doubt be written explaining the differences between men and women.

    Spun content: If you occur to really want to . . .
    . . . which means: If you happen to really want to . . .

    Spun content: In case your marriage is falling apart and divorce seems attainable, then it is advisable do one thing immediately to save lots of your marriage.

    . . . which means: In case your marriage is falling apart and divorce seems probable, then it is advisable do one thing immediately to save your whole marriage.

    It's time that article and content spinners were outlawed. Anyone willing to join a campaign to get this done?

    (Or should that be "Random person consents to put together a movement to have this finished?")
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  • Profile picture of the author cupcakemonster
    Wanted to post an update on this. I filed a DMCA notice about a month ago. It took me about an hour b/c I went over every single page on the plagiarizer's website that was stolen from mine and provided an explanation for each one (since the copying was not word-for-word).

    Just received word back that all the pages have been removed. I checked - and they have.

    Sure, it took around a month, but other than the hour spent in filing the notice, there was little I had to do. And apparently the DMCA does apply to content that is stolen - even if it's not word-for-word.

    So, yes, I'd recommend if anyone else is having their content plagiarized - to spend the time to make sure it stops.
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  • Profile picture of the author Moneymaker2012
    If the content is same to same as in your own website, you can send DMCA complain against them, but for spun content every one is not lucky as you were, it depends on them how they see if it's spun from your original content or not.
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    • Profile picture of the author LastWarrior
      Here's some tips for you fellow Warriors...

      There's an online tool you can use:

      Copyscape Plagiarism Checker - Duplicate Content Detection Software
      Copyscape is a free plagiarism checker. The software lets you detect duplicate content and check if your articles are original.

      Also, before I found this tool I did the below:

      1.) Copy some text on my website (about 7 to 15 words)
      2.) Go to Google.com
      3.) Place those words into Google's search and put quotes " " around them
      4.) If they exist, you will get some sites where the exact same order of words are used

      Just in case someone didn't know, there are 2 ways to check for copied material.

      Hope that helps.

      LastWarrior (Can I at least get some love with a Thanks? LOL!)
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  • Profile picture of the author hustlinsmoke
    I do believe you need to send DMCA if we all just lay down and let people copy are items then it will just keep happening.

    I would send the DMCA directly to the hosting provider and that is what I do. If it is an offshore you can bet it probably won't come down, if there in the U.S. you can bet it will come down.

    Do this for anything that is yours. By doing nothing you are saying, go for it, I don't care. why not come and search my website for my downloads and take them too.

    Takes about 3 minutes to do and send. Even if you have to have alot of stuff filled in I think 30 minutes is worth piece of mind.
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  • Profile picture of the author Graham Maddison
    I know its like closing the door after the horse as bolted, but given that nowadays, most marketers are using wordpress as their cms ..why doesn't everyone use a plugin to stop the right clicking to copy content. I use Fantastic Content Protector Free plugin which does the job perfectly.
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    • Profile picture of the author LastWarrior
      Originally Posted by Graham Maddison View Post


      ..why doesn't everyone use a plugin to stop the right clicking to copy content.
      Because there are simple work-arounds to defeat them.

      EDIT: I removed the info I had here originally that shows how easy it is to bypass these security measures. Although it's super easy to copy material from a website with a WP plugin or simple code to defeat right-click copying, there are many very simple other ways to do it. I'm sure there are many here that know how like I do, but I won't make it easier for newbs to do so. LOL!

      LastWarrior
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